How Many Floppy Disks Would It Take To Equal 1 Gigabyte?

In this day and age, we all take it for granted that we can walk around with multi-gigabyte thumb drives in our pockets. However, it really wasn’t that long ago that we carried around floppy disks. Have you ever wondered how many floppy disks it would take to equal 1 Gigabyte? If you have, then you will enjoy this gallery of images that depicts stacks of different capacity floppy disks that add up to 1 Gigabyte.

Image by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.

Let’s begin by taking a look at a stack of 100 5.25-inch floppy disks alongside a typical thumb drive. This stack of disks measures 6-inches tall.

To give you some perspective as we move forward, this image shows a 6-foot tall man standing in between two stacks of 100 floppy disks.

Image by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.

In the late 70’s, the capacity of the typical 5.25-inch floppy disk was a mere 110 KB. These disks were common for the early word processing machines and early CP/M computers.

To equal 1 Gigabyte, you would need 9,532 110 KB floppy disks. As you can see, this is quite an impressive stack next to our 6-foot tall perspective man.

(Keep in mind that rather than including fractions of a disk, I am rounding off to the ones place when counting the number of disks.)

Image by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.

In 1981, version 1.0 of both MS-DOS and PC-DOS supported single-sided 160 KB floppy disks.

To equal 1 Gigabyte, you would need 6,553 160 KB floppy disks.

Image by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.

In 1982, when DOS was upgraded to 1.1, the operating system provided support for double-sided 320KB floppy disks.

To equal 1 Gigabyte, you would need 3,276 320KB floppy disks.

Image by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.

In 1983, when DOS 2.0 came out, the operating system provided support for both single-sided 180 KB floppy disks and double-sided 360KB floppy disks.

To equal 1 Gigabyte, you would need 5,825 180 KB floppy disks.

Image by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.

While DOS 2.0 provided support for single-sided 180 KB floppy disks, the double-sided 360KB floppy disks were more popular.

To equal 1 Gigabyte, you would need 2,912 360KB floppy disks.

Image by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.

When the IBM PC/AT made its debut in 1984, high density 1.2 MB floppy disks were on their way to becoming the standard.

It would take 853 1.2 MB floppy disks to equal 1 Gigabyte. As you can see, while still an impressive stack, 853 floppy disks no longer towers over our perspective man.

Image by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.

The 3.5-inch disk, while enclosed in a hard plastic case, still retained the name floppy. The first variety of 3.5-inch floppy disk came in a 720 KB capacity.

To equal 1 Gigabyte, you would need 1,456 720 KB floppy disks.

Image by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.

In the late 80’s, the 5.25-inch floppy disk was on its way out and in 1987 the 3.5-inch floppy disk had moved into the high density category with a capacity of 1.44 MB.

You would need 711 1.44 MB floppy disks to equal 1 Gigabyte.

Image by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.

In 1991, the extended density 2.88 MB floppy disk made it appearance, but unfortunately never stole the thunder from its predecessor.

As you can see, it would take only 355 2.88 MB floppy disks to equal 1 Gigabyte.

Image by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.

After looking at those huge stacks of floppy disks, having our perspective man standing next to a 1 Gigabyte thumb drive makes you really appreciate the fact that floppy disks are pretty much a thing of the past.

Image by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.

As you may know, in addition to coming on a CD, Windows 95 and 98 also were available on floppy disks.

Windows 95 came on 1.44 MB floppy disks as well as a special high density floppy disk format, called the Distribution Media Format (DMF), developed by Microsoft for the installation of their products. The DMF disks were formatted at 1.68 MB. Windows 98 only came on the DMF floppy disks.

In this day and age, we all take it for granted that we can walk around with multi-gigabyte thumb drives in our pockets. However, it really wasn’t that long ago that we carried around floppy disks. Have you ever wondered how many floppy disks it would take to equal 1 Gigabyte? If you have, then you will enjoy this gallery of images that depicts stacks of different capacity floppy disks that add up to 1 Gigabyte.

Image by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.

About Greg Shultz

Greg Shultz is a freelance Technical Writer. Previously, he has worked as Documentation Specialist in the software industry, a Technical Support Specialist in educational industry, and a Technical Journalist in the computer publishing industry.

Full Bio

Greg Shultz is a freelance Technical Writer. Previously, he has worked as Documentation Specialist in the software industry, a Technical Support Specialist in educational industry, and a Technical Journalist in the computer publishing industry.